


Normal

by GreenPhoenix



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:10:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4614186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/pseuds/GreenPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby tries to explain Oz to an outsider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal

”What was it like in Oz?” asks Daniel, an old friend of the Beecher family.  
Victoria Beecher sets her fork down, and sighs heavily.  
Thank God Holly’s at a friend’s for a slumber party.  
“Do you really want to know?” asks Toby, nostrils flaring. “Or do you want the sanitized Lifetime version where nobody does anything evil but the bad guys?”  
“I guess the real version. Did you have a bitch?,” he asks in jest.  
“No. I was a bitch. My cellmate raped me each night for three months. Nobody did anything. He branded my ass with a swastika, and no guard saw anything. I’m not gonna show you it. Then I tried to kill him and got sent to the hole. Do you know how dark that place is? All you have is your anger and your demons. You are not what you were before after that.”  
“I’m sorry,” says Daniel. “I had no idea.”  
“No. No one does. Not until it happens to them.”  
Victoria glares at Toby, too much honesty for a polite dinner conversation.  
But she has a mother’s warm concern too.  
“Um..did you have a tv at least?”  
“Yeah. We had miss Sally,” says Toby dreamily.  
“So are you getting therapy?”  
“Yes.”  
“I’m sorry I asked you all those things,” says Daniel.  
“Don’t be. I have to live with them.”  
Victoria manages to steer the conversation to less sad things and Toby lets her.  
There will be others with polite questions, and nothing will change.  
There’s only one person who knows what he went through. Well, two, but he can’t burden Holly with this.  
He goes home to Chris and hides in his arms till morning comes.  
“You okay?” asks Chris.  
“No. But I will be,” says Toby.  
There are words for their twisted relationship, “Stockholm syndrome”, “co-dependency”, but to Toby it’s all about trying to feel human again.  
Chris is the one thing in his world that makes sense.


End file.
